Finding Mrs. Warnecke

Sometimes you read a book or encounter a story that just makes you want to run out and do something. I read a book like that this week. It's Finding Mrs. Warnecke, a book by a North Carolina Teacher of the Year (2008) and National Teacher of the Year finalist (2009). 

In this memoir of sorts, Cindi Rigsbee shares her progression from a first-grade classroom in which she received warm encouragement, to her own classrooms as a teacher and the ways she developed that same encouragement for her students. 

She shares specific techniques for relating to students (and not) and tells of both successes and failures in her growth as an educator. She relates everything to the relationship she had with her first-grade teacher, Barbara Warnecke, and how that relationship helped her at every stage of her life. The book ends with the account of her meeting Warnecke as an adult and how their friendship continued on a new plane.

The relationship between a caring teacher and a willing student is probably the greatest baton-passing combination we humans have. Whether in a classroom or in a home between parent and child, this connection of love and respect produces incalculable positive results.

As my teacher training progresses, I’m struck by the gap between what I expected to learn and what I’m learning. I expected to hear about techniques, magic words that will transfer information from teacher to student. I expected matter-of-fact checklists that would equip me to lead a classroom.

But what I’m hearing repeatedly, and across disciplines, is an emphasis on person-to-person, questioning, open-ended relationships in which a seasoned traveler invites a novice to join him or her on the road.

This is encouraging. Hearing that a simple act like validating a bit of rhyme by a first-grader made the difference for a lifetime means I already possess key tools for education: the abilities to listen, observe, care, pause, encourage, guide. These qualities I already have, should I choose to use them.

As Rigsbee says, the awareness and sensitivity to students’ needs and situations trumps any kind of academic technique or procedure. When I read that she encountered students who disrupted class because a father died or a mother left the night before, I’m reminded of students who acted out in class while I was a substitute teacher this spring.

Were any of those children newly missing a parent? Were they hit or threatened or denied food or forced to leave home the night before? I need to remember to look past behavior and into heart issues before making decisions or taking action.

Rigsbee’s story shows that a moment can make all the difference; but unless the teacher is prepared in that moment, the relationship growth won’t happen. And to be prepared for that one moment, we teachers need to care in every moment.

I had a Mrs. Warnecke too...only her name was Nannie Rucker. I know now she was the first black woman to be a Tennessee delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention, but all I knew then was that my wonderful first-grade teacher came to my house for dinner. 

She loved and encouraged me, then and now. I attended her funeral years ago and despite the crowd, felt as though I knew her best. What a great legacy she and Mrs. Warnecke have left, and who knows how far the ripples go?